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Get on the milkshake train

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on January 09, 2008 at 10:19 AM

Open letter to Paramount Vantage marketing: 26 years ago the buzz-phrase that sold Frank Perry's Mommie Dearest among urban movie buffs was "no wire hangers!" My memory is fuzzy but I don't think Paramount marketers got around to using the phrase in its Mommie Dearest newspaper ads and one-sheets until fairly late in the run, if at all. (Was it used for the home video campaign? I can't remember.)


Thanks to Dave (last name withheld by request) for this illustration

My point is (and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this), you shouldn't make the same mistake with There Will Be Blood. You need to get on the milkshake train now.

"I drink your milkshake!" is the golden ticket that will sell this thing with the people who are too lazy to read reviews and don't care that much about awards. It's simple, it's viral, it's primitive...it will travel. Make the "I drink your milkshake" T-shirts, hand out the buttons and bumper stickers, cut the TV and radio ads that emphasize the line over and over, and sell this brilliant but undeniably gnarly film as a kind of half-melodrama, half-hoot.

Selling Blood for what it is will mean, I suspect, not very much business. Even if it wins awards. A milkshake campaign will, in a sense, dumb the movie down, yes, but it will make it seem more accessible to casual moviegoers. The more it gets around, the more Average Joes will say to each other, "Have you seen it? What's this milkshake thing?"

You should also go with "draaaaaaaiiin-age!" in some way, shape or form.

Comments

I'd like the image to combine the milkshake at the bottom with a derrick at the top, maybe with a straw sticking out. Let the visuals reflect the deeper meaning, just like the film does. At least to my reading of the film.

I'd make this myself, but my T-shirt press isn't up and running yet. Question: what type of permission or royalties would you have to get/pay to use a quote from a film on an independently produced T-shirt? Not using any image from the film, of course, but maybe only the quote and maybe the title. The image would be original.

Great idea ... in fact, I started looking for a link to buy the damn thing as soon as I saw it!

www.therecshow.com

I'd love to see how they would mix it up in a TV ad.

Great, now I can finally stop wearing that 'Little Lebowski Achiever' t-shirt.

Must everything be reduced to t-shirt, bumper sticker or coffee mug?

As someone who hasn't yet seen THERE WILL BE BLOOD—and won't get to until next weekend when it finally opens here—I don't get the "I drink your milkshake" quote. I don't know its context in the movie and don't find it particularly enthralling on its own. So I'm not sure exactly how this is going to drive the average moviegoer to the theatre to see the movie.

I thought Paramount pulled the campaign to highlight the movie's camp quality...wasn't it something like "The Baddest Mother of Them All"? Of course, in a film about child abuse, it's pretty sick.

My wife's favorite line isn't the milkshake one, it's- "your nothin' but a bastard in a basket". She's already spreading that one around.
Score two for There Will Be Blood.

BASTARD FROM A BASKET!

"I'm your brother... from another mother."

I thought that was the catch phrase from "There Will Be Spunk."

Jeff, you don't work in marketing for a reason. You really think a prestige picture would benefit from cheesey milkshake t-shirts? This is right up there with your brilliant "no headaches!" idea for the Beowulf 3D marketing campaign.

And not for nothing, Beowulf provided me with an even bigger headache than Transformers.

Give it a year or two, there'll be a band named Bastard From A Basket.

the 'mommie dearest' campaign that featured the tag 'meet the baddest mother of them all' with a huge wire hanger illustration ran for about a week a month into the movie's release....it got pulled after major complaints to the studio from perry and dunaway....

So, basically Jeff is saying that Plainview's milkshake will bring all the boys to the yard?

TWBB isn't playing in San Antonio yet, I hope we get it soon so I can finally get the milkshake and drainage jokes.

Shirts are good annd all, but I'm waiting for my Daniel Plainview action figure, (equipped with milkshake and bowling pin) to use with the burning oil well playset!

Shirts are good annd all, but I'm waiting for my Daniel Plainview action figure, (equipped with milkshake and bowling pin) to use with the burning oil well playset!

You're going to be sorely disappointed bocephus. Neither of them are exactly a "Here's Johnny" Shining moment. Much fuss is being made of nothing.

I'll buy a miniature burning oil derrick.

A friend suggested "Late Night With Daniel Plainview," essentially a perfect inversion of Nicholson's "HEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" line in The Shining.

Every show opens with a monologue that begins "Ladies and Gentlemen..." and goes on to illustrate some very rational and convincing words about the quality of that evening's program.

Soon after, he has a milkshake drinking contest with his first guest, during which he stands on the far side of his desk with a really long straw, and when he "wins" (there's some kind of visual 'straw meter' about who's drinking more) the audience says along with him, "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!"

And then at the end of every week, the audience votes on the "worst guest" and he bowls at them with a giant rubber bowling ball.

And every night, he signs off with, "Thank you. That was one goddamn helluva show."

So contrived. So dumb and unfunny. Fanboygasm hitting the ceiling here. The only phrase floating around that isn't from Juno is from No Country for Old Men.

Zimmergirl- Your bitter 'tude makes you look like a FFFFFFFOOOL!

What phrase from No Country for Old Men are you talking about?

My favorite part was when he started bellowing "Boy!!" like Angus Scrimm from Phantasm and shouting "I AM THE THIRD REVELATION!"

Is Zimmergirl perhaps referring to "Friendo"? I didn't think that caught on, despite my numerous attempts with gas station attendants across the southwest.

Can I order it with an "I am not Avery" button?

Winchester, I actually was thinking she was confusing the two movies.

I'm not McLovin' any of this t-shirt b.s.

Hey, are typical academy dvd screeners like Wells has anamorphic? Good quality?

Jeffmcm, I realize it was probably just confusion.

I just wanted to try and bring "Friendo" back.

(2 times now, Friendo! Now I've drank YOUR milkshake!)

I refuse to let go of Friendo, Winchester, but then it's no secret I'm a huge dork.

This year all the screeners I've seen have been anamorphic. Some are really good quality while some are CRAP (There Will Be Blood = 2 discs, crappy picture)

Thanks

Because that kind of catchphrase buzz worked so well for 'Snakes On A Plane'?

This is isn't remotely necessary. People are going in droves to see this movie already.

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